With the pandemic raging last Spring and so much uncertainty in the water, it woulda took some real chutzpah to see it as a chance to start up a business from zilch. Better yet, one that focused on helping and pooling struggling local businesses and serving the community. Max Fishman started The Quarter Store in May 2020 as a ‘dark store’ on Bohemia Place (the sunset strip of arches down by Hackney Central station). What began as a pitch to provide much needed aid to shuttered businesses (including - lately - yours truly) quickly evolved into a bricks & mortar, mom & pop neighbourhood convenience store on the Narrow Way.

Max chatted with Alex last week about the genesis of the store, the perks of becoming an overnight household shop-keep and how Saturday jobs should never be sniffed at.

What made you want to set up shop in the middle of a pandemic?

What made me want to start a shop? Well, bit of background; I’ve never worked in retail, never done a Saturday job in a shop, for years I’ve been freelance consulting. Prior to starting the shop I was working with Coca Cola (freelance), my contract was from December 2019 through to the start of the pandemic and then everything got scrapped. So I found myself with no work on in April last year with 3 weeks doing nothing and had the idea to put a load of local food and drink businesses together to sell through Deliveroo.

So fo people who weren’t already on deliver would have a way to sell through there?

Yeah, if you’re E5 bakehouse and you’re selling a £5 loaf of bread it makes no sense to sell that through Deliveroo. No-one’s gonna buy one loaf of bread, pay delivery fee on that, E5 would lose 25% off that sale and they need a member of staff to deal with these potential orders… So my idea was - while it doesn’t make sense to do it themselves - if I brought together E5, Climpsons, a couple of craft breweries and some natural wine merchants into one shop I could do it for them. I emailed about 25 local businesses, with the exception of two everyone came back to me within 48 hours saying ‘yes, count me in!’ So I set up (the original) shop within 2 weeks from forming the idea in the front part Agua De Madre’s arch on Bohemia Place.

Did you know the guys at Agua de Madre?

Not even, so this is thing about doing something like this in the pandemic makes it easier in so many ways. Those arches down there were the perfect place for doing a ‘dark store’ on Deliveroo; you get the delivery radius to the whole of East London, easy access for scooters. I emailed everyone with an arch down there and asked if they had any spare space - two got back to me straight away and the next day I went down to see Nicola at Agua de Madre and they had all this excesses pace at the front that would normally be for events.

I remember seeing it on Instagram and coming to look for it thinking it was a real shop…

Ha, yeah… So, the idea was Deliveroo only on the first day, then by day 2 we had people already coming in to try and buy stuff and I was completely unprepared for that! I didn’t have a card reader, I had no way for taking cash, just no idea what I was doing. For the first three weeks I had dim sum style menus with an itinerary and people could tick what they wanted and I’d go out the back and collect. People were quite charitable with it but we quickly learned that what they were craving was a sense of community, to go out and have a conversation with someone.

Which pushed you into the new space in the Narrow Way?

Yes, the new space is much more about giving good service and being a friendly face. At Christmas when everyone’s plans got f*cked a lot of people were just coming into us to have a chat. The new pitch was this can be your dream community store. We’re working with mainly local businesses (all independent) with a sustainability angle especially with the ‘home’ products we stock. We have two local artists who’ve been unable to work, one is a tattoo artist who’s been doing some printmaking and a graphic designer.

And has this network built out of the original idea or were these people that you knew before?

No, I didn’t know anyone! I had a hit-list of my favourite local suppliers at the start and I guess in normal times had I just emailed out of the blue maybe I wouldn’t have got the response I did. The reality was everyone was in a bind so they were probably more willing to give it a go.

Was the intention always to leave the arch and move into a shop?

To be honest I never knew what it was going to be. It could’ve just been something to support a few local businesses through the pandemic and nothing more than that. When I started I had zero grand ambitions. It became quite apparent quite quickly that the arch was a shit spot for a shop! There’s no one walking past. I’d pick up some traffic off of queues but by July when people were going down to the re-opened venues to get drunk it all dropped off. I just keep seeing this street (the Narrow Way) and it was busy and thought that would be the ideal place to be. I think they’ve done a really good job with the pedestrianisation thing, the architecture, lighting… it’s a nice street.

So, let’s finish on some top shop tips - apart from the BTW Seltzers (!) - what are your favourite products?

I always take home wine! Partly because I need to try it and partly because, you know… The dumpling kits from My Neighbours the Dumplings are really great and it’s possibly why the last few weeks have gone so well. We’re definitely trying to focus on more ‘finish at home’ options and dinner stuff or grab-and-go lunches to make the experience more all in one.

The Quarter Store is open Tuesday to Friday from 9am - 7pm, Saturday 9:30am - 7:30pm and Sunday from 9:30am - 5pm.

You can find them at 346 Mare Street on the Narrow Way.

Or, shop online now and get your groceries delivered anywhere across East London in under an hour through thequarter.store

Our range of Seltzers are available alongside a host of other neighbourly goodness ☺︎

☻☛ WHEN GOOD NEIGHBOURS ☚☺︎